**don't own the characters or series.
05:Jerusalem Ridge
The theater of dreams in darkness.
***
"Now, Mrs. Mizuno, I'm sure Ami will do fine at our Jerusalem Ridge Cram School."
"I certainly hope so, Mrs. Urashima. I know she's young, but –"
"Youth doesn't enter into it. She has the scores. We're sure that she can do the work. The top of the nation, however old she may be, will always be welcome to forward JRCS. And I'm sure her father and mother are quite worthy of thanks?"
"Oh, you're too kind. Um, yes, her mother has seen to it that she always gets into the best institutions. My husband, you see, left –"
"Oh, I'm dreadfully sorry!"
"Not at all. He is an artist, now. That was his passion. And he is better paid than he was when we tried to balance that with a relationship. He works in America now. San Francisco. Castro Street."
"Oh, how nice."
"Indeed. As I was saying, nothing but the best for Ami. Cherry Hill Pre-Kindergarten. Three months at T*A Kindergarten, before they told me they were not up to the standards that she should require. Mugen Kindergarten. And she's just been two years at Mugen Primary."
"Well, I'm sure Ami will get along fine if she will just apply herself. And make no mistake about it, Mrs. Mizuno, this is the finest preparatory institution in Japan, and quite probably – and I'm not bragging but telling the truth – in the world, Mrs. Mizuno. We put fifty percent of last year's outgoing graduates into the California Institute of Technology, twenty-five percent into the Laplace Institute of Technology, and the rest we put into Cambridge. We're referred to as Pre-Freshman Caltech."
"I know your credentials, Mrs. Urashima. I just hope Ami won't let you down."
"Why do you say that?"
"Well, why not? I got to MIT through hard work. The trouble is, her father wasn't renowned for credibility. Nor most of his side. Drinkers and dreamers, Mrs. Urashima. Not on my side, but you see, a certain indiscretion –"
"Yes, yes."
"I think you understand. I have the most confidence in Ami. I taught her to read before she crawled out of the crib, and she got the rudiments of math shortly after that. She goes straight to the books, nothing else. Only her teachers, and I agree, mentioned that she really should have some activities, and now she has really taken to swimming."
"Well, that's quite good."
"Yes, it's becoming almost a dead heat between swimming and studying. I'm sure she'll get down to the books like she always does though. Just like me when I was a girl. And she's a very good girl, just tell her where to go and she'll go, and find a better way to get there, no doubt."
***
"Ladies and gentlemen, we welcome you to our commencement ceremony here at Jerusalem Ridge. This institution was founded on the notion that success is not given on a silver platter. Not by any means. No, it only offers itself to those who will take it. But the hand that holds victory is a high one, so the brilliant must build engines to get there.
"Always there will be people trying to get ahead. They are people, and they deserve a great measure of approbation, who work hard, regardless of handicaps and difficulties they face. There may be a few brilliant among them, who take somewhat more quickly to the material, and who can do a little bit more with the life allotted us all. And then there are the chances of the divine, geniuses, who see the world around them and can truthfully say, I may improve this, and can quickly and easily set about doing so. Tonight we are here to give particular honor to a genius. This student came when two years through Mugen Primary, a renowned college of a renowned institution (an institution quite closely allied through history and practice with our own), overseen by Dr. Tomoe, an illustrious man, the Bacon of our age.
"This student has without fail scored at the top of the national exams, and while she has sometimes, once, been equaled, she has never been bettered.
"Therefore, please recognize and greet with applause the winner of the Mercury Award, Miss Ami Mizuno!"
***
"The wise man admonishes that no wise man will leave the certain for the uncertain. This is indeed the bedrock of scientific principle. That which is tried and true, or may be tried and true even through novel application, furthers science. It is by that aim that we left the caves, got the fire and the wheel, and come to sit here today in a society and civilization. An d where you find civilization, you will again find religion. Even in the strictest rejection of the church by an unforgiving regime, you will find a religion.
"Aberrations of logic. Even atheists eventually come to this skeleton in the evolutionary concept. Only once dismiss religion on the basis of the remarks (unfounded then and there) of your scientific progenitors, and you act without evidence and therefore fall back on religion."
***
"Ami, I don't understand. You want to go where?"
"Juuban, Mother. Please. I have the exams, I'm the youngest to complete the work at Jerusalem Ridge"
"That may be, and I am very proud, Ami, very proud. But you can't through that away, you can't want that."
"Mother, it made me sick at Mugen. Please!"
"You felt sick, and why possibly could you feel sick?"
"W – they didn't care, Mother. I mean, I just get ill sometimes, it feels like it's all hopeless, I get so worried about whether everything –"
"Worried! Worried! You get worried? I get worried. I get worried that you'll end up like your father. You know? Spend the rest of your life doodling like Hiro-baka! I saw those poems you wrote. You could have studied. That's what you'll do at Juuban, waste your time cosplaying and chasing idols and playing video games. Next thing you'll be into burusera for money."
"Mother, please."
"Please what? I work my fingers to the bone. I get ten hours of sleep in three days sometimes, and it's all to afford the extra legs up you get. You want to waste it?"
"No, Mother, no!"
"Then what is the whole issue, Ami? You're simply wasting time. Go to Mugen. Please. Get a good education. Mugen students go places. They get the best grants. You'll be happy the rest of your life if you just make this choice, Ami."
"Okay, Mother, I'll go."
"She goes to Juuban after all. She gets into the best academy in the country. Doctor Tomoe tells me in person how much of a credit she is to the university – and she can't handle it. She gets sick and she leaves. Everything is in vain. Of course she does well now, she'll never be challenged in that scummy school. None but sluts and bums there. Nothing good can come of it, I'm sure of it."
***
"I don't like that Usagi girl you're hanging out with. And that Mamoru boy, how much older is he?"
"But she's nice, Mother. And they don't"
"Oh, I doubt they don't."
"Well actually, they stopped seeing each other."
"Oh, she was cheating, was she?"
"I don't know. I don't see how she could."
"Nonsense. A waste of time."
"Oh, I'm sure she'll be glad to see you. She's resting right now. She doesn't feel well."
"Has she been like this since Saturday night?"
"Yes, she has just been ill since then. She'll have so far to catch up. Well, you can wait up as long as you want, maybe she'll come too. I have to get to work shortly."
"Thanks, Mrs. Mizuno."
"Ami, can you hear us?"
"I don't know if she can, Rei."
"This is really horrible. She was, she just passed out?"
"It was too much, I guess. Her mother and all. It really sent you for a loop. Hell, it sent me for a loop, and you sure could say my going with Usagi is alternative enough. And cheating."
"That old witch. That old witch. She did it. She's got no one, now. No one but her friends."
Sobs and an embrace.